


This is Nothing (Everything)

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel Fix-It, Torture, Work Up For Adoption, in theory anyway, like seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24691270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: Rowena didn’t cast a spell to make Dean into a bomb. She cast a spell to send him back in time.Dean snaps his fingers and finds himself standing in front of the archangels in Stull.It’s a chance to fix almost everything. To prevent almost everything. Sam without his soul, Cas’ war with Raphael, the Leviathans, Metatron, the Mark-- everything.The Cage should be nothing compared to everything Dean’s going to fix. And it’s not, no matter what Lucifer and Alastair tell him when Sam’s not around.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 65





	This is Nothing (Everything)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hardwired](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20839817) by [notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer). 



> First off: I'm posting this because I put a lot of time and effort into it. However, at this time I have no intention of finishing this. If anyone would like to use this idea/set-up or continue this fic in any way, please feel free-- just let me know so I can read it!
> 
> This is a fix-it, at least in theory, but it’s still probably one of the darkest/most disturbing things I’ve written. Which is saying a lot.  
> Every time I wrote a line about Alastair or Lucifer I felt like I should take a bath in hand sanitizer or something. Blech.  
> Please let me know if I’m missing anything or portraying anything inaccurately/offensively.  
> Warnings:  
> -Rape/non-con/extremely dub-con: none pictured “on screen”, but there are several references to past rape/non-con and there is threatened/implied rape non-con too.  
> -Torture/violence-- tagged for graphic depictions because, uh, Lucifer and Alastair.  
> -PTSD
> 
> A/N:  
> Oh boy. Here we go.  
> Sorry about the formatting-- I can't get it to work properly.  
> I love kudos and comments if you're so inclined.

Dean stumbles to his feet and looks around. Adam and Sam are staring at him--

Wait. No.

Lucifer and Michael are staring at him. There’s a hole in the ground, too deep to see what’s at the bottom--

_Shit_.

Stull. 

If Dean had thought it through, he would have expected to go back to somewhere else. Cold Oak, maybe. New Harmony. The moment he said yes to Alastair. Lilith’s death.

This moment in time makes as much sense as any, Dean guesses. He knows what he’s supposed to do. He’s spent a decade wishing for a chance to fix this.

“You… you are not the Dean you’re supposed to be,” Lucifer says slowly.

“Got that right,” Dean says. He smiles like John taught him to-- bright and friendly, a hint of danger behind the charm.

He spread his hands. 

“Michael, you motherfuckin’ son of a bitch, I’m saying yes. Let’s do this.”

Lucifer’s face spasms as Sam tries to break through. Dean keeps his hands loose at his sides.

Adam’s face splits into a smile that’s strikingly wrong on the teenager. There’s a flare of Grace, brighter than Cas’ ever had been, and Dean’s pushed into the corner of his own head. Adam’s body crumples to the ground.

Michael, radiating triumph, raises Dean’s arm. A flaming sword appears in his grip.

_Sammy_.

There’s no conscious thought involved. Dean uses the dwindling power of the souls burning into his chest to push back against Michael’s control.

Dean seizes control of his limbs and tackles Lucifer backwards into the hole.

He does his best to shove the rest of the souls to Cas. He doesn’t know if it works.

Dean falls, and falls, and falls. He can feel the archangel inside him screaming and burning and he keeps his brother’s face firmly in his mind.

Dean wonders if Sam’s doing the same thing.

He hits the Cage floor. Michael’s rage races through his veins.

Dean only has time to see Sam’s horrified face before he’s burning from the inside out.

Even now, even here, the only word he can scream is _Sammy_.

The archangels somehow know how much time is passing. At the end of every day, Lucifer and Michael stop and let Sam and Dean heal.

It’s never for the same amount of time. It’s almost worse to have the brief, unpredictable respites.

That’s the point, Dean supposes. The anticipation is its own form of torture.

“That's a wrap on day 1,378,” Lucifer announces gleefully, taking his blade from between the tendons of Dean's bare wrist bones. “Take five, team.”

Michael drops Sam to the floor and slinks off to the corner.

Dean drags himself over to his brother, biting back screams. Sam's barely breathing. They can’t die in here-- the archangels won’t let them-- but they can come pretty damn close.

Lucifer shifts into Alastair. “You can make it stop at any time, Dean-o,” Lucifer says. “Just say yes. Just pick up the blade. Just hurt Sam, and I stop hurting you.”

Dean laughs in his face, even though he’s choking on his own blood. Lucifer’s smile flickers.

No matter how long this lasts, nothing Lucifer does will ever touch what Alastair could do. He has no finesse and no idea what it takes to break Dean. That’s why he needs Dean to pick up the knife.

Alastair knew how to break anyone. It still took him thirty years to break Dean.

This is nothing.

Michael’s no more than a low-level thug. He spends more and more of his time huddled in the corner, singing flat hymns in Enochian.

Lucifer is worse than Michael. He’s still nothing compared to Alastair.

This is nothing.

Lucifer doesn't fuck Dean just to hear the noises he makes when he comes with punctured lungs like Alastair did. Fucking Lucifer doesn’t hurt quite like Alastair made it hurt, either.

Lucifer doesn't take days to flay Dean alive. 

Lucifer doesn't drag his fingers over Dean's exposed nerves and then follow the same path with a razor.

Lucifer doesn't know what he's doing.

This is nothing.

Somewhere, Dean and Sam are wandering around without their souls, killing things. Somewhere, Cas is fighting a war. Somewhere, someone has to notice something’s wrong sometime.

(Sam’s screams would have broken Dean in a day in Hell, but nothing could make Dean hurt Sam.

Nothing.)

Dean pulls Sam’s head into his lap, hangs his head, and breathes. The blood from his eye drips onto Sam’s face.

_This is nothing._

He does his best not to think it in Enochian, but it’s the only language he’s heard in years.

He and Sam aren’t allowed to speak English. They get their tongues ripped out if they try. 

The one act of resistance the two of them have left is communicating in Morse Code.

Dean doesn't count saying _no_ as an act of resistance. _Yes_ was never an option.

On day 15,734, like every day before, Dean does the math. He’s getting really good at it.

365 days in an Earth year, 10 Cage years in an Earth month, 12 months in one Earth year.

The first time around, Sam’s soul had been in the Cage for roughly a year, Earth time. 

365 Earth days. 45,000 days in the Cage.

(Dean overestimates, just in case, because if he gets to the end of 43,800 days and no one saves them, he doesn’t know how much longer he would last without losing his mind.)

45,000 minus 15,734 is 29,266 is 80 years.

123 years minus 80 years is 43 years.

43 years down, 80 to go.

On day 15,734, just like every day before, Sam takes Dean’s hand and taps out: _take the fucking offer, Dean._

On day 15,734, just like every day before, Dean taps back: _you’re a fucking moron if you think that’ll ever happen_.

On day 15,734, just like every day before, Dean wishes he could tell his brother that this all has an end while Sam prays to God to save them. Dean doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he has first-hand information that God doesn’t give a flying fuck about anything.

Just like every day before, Dean and Sam sit back to back together in silence, shaking and tapping their fading memories of Earth back and forth. They can never sleep for long, but they sometimes drift off leaning on each other.

Just like every goddamn fucking day before, when Lucifer claps his hand and announces it’s time to start day 15,735, Dean steps between the archangels and his brother, even though he knows it won’t do anything.

This is nothing.

At the start of day 38,177, Lucifer holds a blowtorch over Sam’s foot but doesn’t light it.

“Dean-o,” he says, sing-song.

Dean doesn’t bother trying to stop screaming. Michael’s boring, but he’s got eternity, and having someone pry your kneecap off fucking _hurts_.

Lucifer sighs and throws his hand out. Michael goes skidding into the corner with an Enochian curse.

“Pay attention to me.”

Dean rolls his neck to look at Lucifer. He does his best to channel Sam’s most unimpressed bitch face. "Ask nicely."

Lucifer flicks his hand and snaps Dean’s kneecap. Dean yells.

“Shut up,” Lucifer says. He adopts an Italian accent. “I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Dean does his best to hide his fear and hatred.

“You show me how you’d treat Michael on the rack, I’ll leave Sam alone for a year. What can I say, I like them defiant.”

Dean doesn’t even think about saying no.

6823 days left. 18.7 years left.

He wouldn’t take the Mark, he wouldn’t let Cas open Purgatory, he wouldn’t let the Darkness out.

This is nothing.

He just has to hold out for 18.7 more years.

When the day ends, Sam grabs Dean’s arm and taps out, over and over again, _fuck you fuck you fuck u fuck u_.

Lucifer decides to start the next day after five more minutes.

Sam presses his back into the corner and closes his eyes as Dean picks up a knife.

This is nothing.

“Looks like you’re more than just a pretty face and a nice, tight ass after all,” Lucifer murmurs, the fallen angel’s chin propped on Dean’s shoulder. “Maybe that’s why I like you so much better than your brother. He’s boring. You’ve got that lovely streak of ruthless in you.”

Dean carves out another of Michael’s feathers and doesn’t allow himself to flinch.

Flinching just encourages Alastair.

Dean shakes his head hard. 

_Lucifer. This is Lucifer. Not Alastair. Alastair’s dead._

Sam survived 120 years in the Cage on his own. This is nothing.

“Something wrong, pet?” Lucifer’s hands start to drift down Dean’s sides. 

Dean can’t hold back the flinch this time. 

Alastair had called him that. 

Lucifer laughs in Dean’s ear and his fingers dig into Dean’s waist.

Death appears in a flare of smoke that smells like pizza. 

Dean drops his knife.

“What--” Lucifer starts.

Dean’s vision blacks out.

Dean wakes up before Sam does. He sits bolt upright and looks around wildly.

Castiel places his hand on Dean’s left shoulder. 

Dean stares. Lucifer always got the shoulder with the handprint wrong. That means...

“Cas?” Dean rasps. “That you?”

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says.

Dean pulls Cas in for a hug. He buries his face in the angel’s trenchcoated shoulder and lets himself cry for the first time in 38,501 days.

When his breath slows, Dean clears his throat and sits back, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Did you, uh, did you win the war?”

“Yes.” Castiel regards him with that laser focus Dean missed so badly. “Heaven is safe and under the rule of my most trusted angels. The souls you sent aided greatly. Thank you.”

“Yeah.” Dean can’t stop looking at Cas. The last time he’d seen the angel, he’d been weak, defeated, and bloody. Before that, he’d been Lucifer. 

This Cas will never open Purgatory, never go insane, never say yes to Lucifer. 

“Jesus Christ, I’m glad to see you.”

Cas doesn’t say anything about the blasphemy, which is Dean’s first sign something is wrong.

Well. More wrong than expected.

“Death promised you would not remember anything,” Cas says. “Yet you are speaking in Enochian.”

“This is English.” To his humiliation, Dean’s voice shakes.

“No. This is Enochian.”

Dean fixes his eyes on his hands. “Cas--”

“You are not from this time,” Cas says. “I can tell that much. There is no other way you would have possessed those souls. You are still my Dean, though.”

“Am I?”

Cas smiles. 

Lucifer will never smile with Cas’ face, now. The Leviathans will never twist his expression into that horrible parody of a grin.

It has to be worth it.

“Your soul shines just as brightly as when I last saw it,” the angel says. “No matter what time you may be from, or what you may have endured, you are still the man I Fell for.”

_You can’t just_ say _shit like that, Cas,_ Dean thinks, and he’s shaking for a reason that might not just be relief.

“That may be why you remember,” Cas muses. “Perhaps Death cannot modify the memories of someone who comes from a different time.”

“Yeah.” 

Dean doesn’t really care. This Cas won’t ever break Sam’s wall, and as long as Death can keep Sam from remembering, it’s worth it.

What’s another 105.48 years of Hell memories? It’s not like Lucifer was ever as bad as Alastair.

It was nothing.

Sam and Cas-- and _hell_ , even _Bobby’s_ still alive, holy shit-- they’re his family.

They’re everything.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Dean promises. “As soon as Sam wakes up.”

Dean sits on the edge of Sam’s cot and clutches his brother’s hand. He’s scared to speak in case the words come out in Enochian, so he uses Morse Code. It’s habit, by now. 

_You’re okay, Sammy. You’re okay. We’re safe. I got you. We’re out. I got you. It’s safe…_

Dean wonders if Sam will remember how to speak Enochian. He hopes not. 

Cas perches in a chair and stares into nothing. Dean would never admit it, but it’s reassuring. He hasn’t felt safe in so long, and this Cas-- Cas with his supercharged Grace, Cas who’s perfectly sane-- can protect him and Sam from just about anything on the planet.

Bobby comes down to see Dean and Dean nearly cries again.

“I’ll explain everything,” Dean says again, once he’s hugged Bobby hard. “But once Sammy wakes up.”

Bobby nods and goes back upstairs. Dean hears him blow his nose loudly and has to smile.

Some things don’t change.

“Cas?” Dean asks. 

Cas swivels his head to look at Dean. It’s strangely avian and Dean reminds himself that this Cas has never been human.

_This is going to be a full-on mind-fuck._

“Did you do something to my memory, after Hell?”

The past 105.48 years are etched into Dean’s memory, and so are the 40 years he spent with Alastair, but he remembers everything he’s experienced on Earth, too. It seems like he should have the luxury of forgetting.

Cas inclines his head. “I expanded your ability to remember, yes. It was not a major change, but most humans are not capable of operating at full mental capacity with so many memories, and I wanted you to be able to function.”

“Why didn’t you just take the memories?”

“I did not have the power,” Cas says. “Forty years… I wished to, but I dared not, for fear of permanent damage.”

Dean doesn’t like the sound of _permanent damage_. 

“If you changed it now--”

“I cannot. That would leave you with only memories of the Cage. At best. At worst, your brain would liquefy.”

Dean nods.

“It’s okay, Cas,” he says when the angel looks troubled. “It was nothing.”

The angel’s face shifts from _troubled_ to _confused and concerned_. It’s all in the eyebrows.

“I do not think that ten and a half months in the Cage is, as you say, ‘nothing’.”

“It wasn’t the Rack.”

“That… is a factual statement.”

Dean snorts and goes back to watching his brother’s face. It’s been more than a century since he saw Sam look anything close to peaceful.

Sam wakes up after a few hours.

“Dean?” he breathes. “I… You were supposed to…”

“Have you met me?” Dean asks. He makes sure it's English. “Taking care of you is my job. No way was I letting you deal with two archangels with daddy issues alone.”

This time around, anyway. Dean won’t ever forgive himself for letting Sam jump alone the first time.

“Damn it,” Sam sighs, but he doesn’t sound surprised. “I don’t suppose you remember anything? I don’t think I do.”

Dean blinks and the walls of the Cage blaze on the insides of his eyelids.

“Nah,” he lies. “Not a thing.”

“Is that the story you wish me to “roll with”?” Cas asks.

Dean resists the urge to bang his head into the wall. 

Sam’s eyes go huge.“Dean?”

Dean stands up. His hands are only shaking a little.

He remembers this from after Hell and Purgatory. The readjustment period is always rough and it never actually stops. He just gets better at pretending it does. 

Alcohol helps.

“I’ll explain everything, but only if someone gets me a beer.”

“Time travel,” Bobby says flatly. “You sure all that quality time with the Devil didn’t fry your brain?”

Sam winces, but Dean doesn’t mind the bluntness. _It’s fine_ , he taps to Sam. Sam blinks at him and doesn’t respond. 

“When Sam was soulless, I got jinxed, and everybody I talked to had to tell the truth. You get foot massages.” Dean figures Bobby hasn’t ever told anyone else that. Bobby’s face turns pink. Dean adds, “I ain’t ruling out my brain being fried, but I did come back in time.”

Cas says, “Dean is not from this timeline. He is telling the truth.”

“All right, so you’re not delusional,” Bobby grumbles. “That you’re from the future is one can of worms I’m gonna do my best not to open. You’re saying you came back to stop God from dying and his sister from killing him?”

“There’s a lot of other things I’m going to change, but that’s the last thing that happened.”

“Like what?” Sam asks.

Dean looks at his brother. Sam’s still got his wounded puppy dog face on. Dean senses a chick flick moment in the immediate future.

“Like keeping Purgatory closed. Like keeping you from going nuts ‘cause of Lucifer. A lot of the major things should be fixed already, though. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ve done nothing but worry since the day I met you boys,” Bobby mutters. 

Dean smiles and drains his beer.

From behind him, Lucifer leans down and whispers, “Nice acting, Dean-o. Let’s see how long it lasts.”

Sam won’t have to see Lucifer. Cas won’t open Purgatory. Bobby won’t die. Dean won’t take the mark.

The Cage meant nothing in comparison to that.

It was nothing.

This, this right here? This is everything.

Lucifer laughs. “We’ll see.”

Dean knows the drill. Alastair had stuck around for years. 

He digs his nails into his arm under the table until the Devil goes away.

Bobby pulls four more beers out of the fridge. Cas stares at the one Bobby hands him like it’s an alien artifact.

“I do not--”

“Sam and Dean are alive and have their souls again, everyone’s drinking a celebratory beer. I don’t care if it tastes like molecules.”

Cas twists the top off with the palm of his hand. Dean winces reflexively-- he did that once as a kid and it took forever to heal-- but the angel doesn’t bleed.

Right. This Cas is hardly going to be injured by a bottle cap.

Cas tips the bottle back and drains it in one go.

“I do not see the appeal,” he concludes.

“Party on, Cas,” Dean says. “You chug those molecules.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

It’s so familiar, being back. Sitting around Bobby’s kitchen table drinking beers with his family is almost enough to make him stop thinking of everything he has left to do.

Dean twists the top off of his third beer and takes a swig. Drinking had made Alastair shut up. He’s hoping it makes Lucifer do the same thing. This body seems to have as high a tolerance as his old one did, though. He’ll have to steal some whiskey from Bobby’s stash.

“How rebellious teenager of you,” Lucifer comments. “Next thing you know you’ll be smoking weed and having sex on roofs. Go on, live out the life Johnny never gave you the chance to have.”

Dean ignores him.

“So what do we do now?” Sam asks. “Cas, do you think the wall will hold?”

“It should,” Cas says. “Failing some sort of extreme mental assault, you should have no memories of the Cage.”

Bobby pauses with his beer halfway to his mouth. “That go for Dean, too?”

“Dean,” Sam says pointedly, “will try to convince you that it does, but, apparently, he remembers everything.”

Dean glares at his brother. “Sam--”

“Oh, and he remembers those forty years in Hell, too.”

“ _Sam_.”

“Fuck off, Dean. I’m tired of you lying about this.”

Dean tries to pick up his bottle of beer. His hands are shaking too badly to do it. He hopes to Chuck the shaking isn’t visible to anyone else.

“Forty years?” Bobby repeats. “Dean, you were down there for four months.”

“Is this really the biggest issue right now?” Dean asks no one in particular. “Really?”

“I believe they are concerned for your wellbeing,” Cas informs him. “Bobby did not realize the extent of your trauma.”

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean sighs. He’s glad to have this Cas back, but the old Cas, _his_ Cas, had more tact, and that was saying a lot. “I really appreciate that.”

“You are welcome.”

“Were you really going to pretend you didn’t remember again?” Sam demands. “Drink yourself to sleep every night, wake up screaming, rip people’s heads off for existing?”

“ _And_ we’re done.” Dean stands up. His chair slides across the floor with a screech.

Sam isn’t finished. “This was supposed to be my burden to bear, Dean. The Cage was supposed to be my turn to make a sacrifice. You were supposed to live your life without me.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean opens the front door. “I tried that. It didn’t work out so well. Watching your back is hardwired into my goddamn DNA, Sammy.”

He slams the door behind him and walks out into the salvage yard. 

The Impala’s waiting in Bobby’s shed. Dean pulls off the tarp and climbs into the driver’s seat.

His Baby smells like leather and metal and home. Dean drops his forehead onto the steering wheel and breathes.

Lucifer doesn’t get into the car. 

Dean taps his fingers on the bottom of the wheel. He doesn’t realize he’s using Morse Code for a full minute.

He’s tapping _Sammy Sammy Sammy Sammy Sammy._

Sam finds him after about half an hour. He gets into the passenger seat and doesn’t say anything.

Dean sits up and stills his fingers.

“Sorry,” Sam says. “I… I just… You were supposed to be safe. You came back to fix things and you ended up…”

Dean turns his head to look at his brother. Sam’s crying.

“Sammy,” he says. “Sammy, it’s okay.”

“It’s not.” Sam doesn’t look at him. “It’s not okay, and you’re not okay, Dean, and I don’t want you to pretend that you are like you always do.”

“What else am I supposed to do?’

“Talk to me.”

Dean barks out a laugh. Sam flinches. 

“Yeah, sure. Let me just risk reminding you of the Cage and make you feel shitty about crap you can’t change. Great plan.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s my job to take care of you, too. But you need to talk to me.”

“There aren’t words,” Dean says, remembering a sunny day in Washington fifteen (two) years ago. “Not for what they did to me, to us. Not for what Alastair did. Not for what I did. You can’t understand and I wouldn’t make you even if I could. I hope to God you never understand again.”

Sam stares out the windshield. Dean wonders if he’s remembering Washington too. “You heard Cas. It’ll take much worse to break Death’s wall.”

Dean goes back to tapping.

“It doesn’t have to be everything. Just… Just talk to me. Let’s start with why you’re using Morse Code to talk.”

Dean’s tired. 

“They carved our tongues out if we spoke English.”

They don’t talk anymore. Dean falls asleep on Sam’s shoulder.

That much is familiar.

Cas knocks on the driver’s side window. Dean jerks awake so abruptly he starts to fall over.

“Whoa,” Sam says, grabbing Dean to keep him upright. His hand touches Dean’s lower back.

There’s no conscious thought or decision involved in what Dean does next. He throws himself away from the person touching him and smashes his boot heel into their face. He knows it won’t do anything, but he never did learn his lesson about fighting back.

When nothing happens, Dean blinks back to himself to see Sam’s nose start pouring blood. He wants to help his brother, but the thought of moving closer suddenly seems like a really bad idea. 

“Dean?” Sam asks thickly. He pinches his nose with one hand and reaches out with the other.

Dean presses himself against the door and tries to convince himself he’s safe.

“Don’t touch me,” Dean says. “I don’t want it. That. Don’t touch me.”

It’s hard to read Sam’s face when he’s just had his nose broken, but Dean has the feeling he’s just given something away.

“Okay, Dean,” Sam says. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

Only Sam would apologize when he’s the one with the broken nose.

They climb out of the car. Cas is frowning. For once, the angel doesn’t comment. He presses two fingers to Sam’s forehead and his nose heals.

“Thanks, Cas,” Sam says. He’s still watching Dean.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dean snaps. “You tried to shoot me the first time around. I’d say this is minor.”

Sam gives Dean bitchface number seven, the “don’t try to deflect with me” one.

“What do you say we find a hunt for tomorrow?” Dean asks.

Bitchface number seven intensifies before shifting into bitchface three, the “weary resignation with underlying determination” one.

“Fine. I’m going to go wash blood off of my face.”

“Sorry,” Dean mutters. “I, uh. It just happened.”

“I noticed.” 

Lucifer follows them back to the house. “Smooth, Dean. Way to act normal.”

Dean checks that Cas and Sam aren’t looking before flipping the archangel off.

“It was so much easier when you stopped fighting,” Lucifer adds. “But those green eyes did look pretty when you were glaring up at me. They were even prettier staring at me from Sam’s eye sockets, but still.”

Dean digs his nails into his arm. There are still red indents from earlier. Lucifer smirks, flickers, and vanishes.

Bobby doesn’t ask, although he shoots Dean sideways glances as he’s frying steak. Dean ignores it. The silence is awkward but his glass of whiskey allows him to ignore it.

Bobby puts down plates for himself, Sam, and Dean. 

Dean takes one look at his plate, sees the piece of meat and the red oozing from it, and sprints for the bathroom.

Cas is the one to try to come after Dean. Sam’s probably still wary from the incident in the Impala and Bobby’s never been one to volunteer to deal with emotions.

“Dean,” the angel’s gravelly voice says. “Can you open the door?”

Dean remains curled in the corner in front of the toilet. 

“I just need to know that you are… okay.”

Dean almost laughs. By no definition of the word is he _okay_.

Cas sighs. “I shall be outside, standing guard, until you are ready to allow me to enter.”

The absolute certainty in Cas’ voice is what makes Dean eventually speak.

“You can come in,” Dean rasps. He leans over the toilet and retches up bile as his stomach heaves again. 

Cas enters. The door closes and locks itself behind him.

The angel kneels beside Dean, careful not to touch him.

“I believe it is customary to rub a vomiting person’s back,” Cas says with a question in his voice.

Dean curls up tighter. “Don’t touch me.” 

His voice comes out small. He hates this weakness. He hates being vulnerable. Dean hasn’t felt this pathetic since Sam died in Cold Oak, or maybe since those first few days after Hell, when he hadn’t figured out how to get rid of Alastair yet and he hadn’t been sure he was really out.

The Cage was nothing, in comparison to everything he’s going to stop. It’s nothing. 

Dean doesn’t understand why this is still affecting him. It’s over. It’s nothing.

“Okay,” Cas says. The informal term sounds strange on his tongue. “I will not.”

Dean relaxes a little. Cas settles against the wall beside him, six inches of space between his arm and Dean.

“If you wish to speak,” Cas murmurs, “I would like to hear something good about the future. The future which would have been. I know you are here to stop it from occurring, but...”

Dean thinks about it. Sometimes it seems like there hadn’t been much but conflict and bad blood between him, Sam, and Cas since Sam jumped into the Cage.

“I saw your wings,” he offers. “We, uh, we made glasses to see Hellhounds with, and they worked on you.”

“Did you like them?” Cas asks tentatively.

“They were… they’re beautiful.”

Yeah. Beautiful was the right word.

Cas’ wings were the most beautiful thing Dean has ever seen.

That earns him a smile.

 _Two Cas smiles in one day,_ Dean thinks. _That’s gotta be a record._

He relaxes just a little.

Dean gradually stops shaking. Cas waits, six inches away.

Dean stands and staggers as the circulation returns to his legs. Cas hovers but doesn’t reach out.

“I’m going to brush my teeth and crash,” Dean tells him. “Tell Bobby and Sam that I’m sick.”

Cas inclines his head. “Sleep well, Dean.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Dean doubts that’ll happen.

_Cas dangles from the ceiling of the Cage, his wrists held above him in angel-proof cuffs, his beautiful wings limp and dull, his face battered and bloody._

_Dean stands in front of him. He raises the knife to the tip of Cas’ wing._

_“Dean,” Cas whispers. “Dean, please…”_

_Dean hesitates._

_“Second thoughts, pet?” Alastair whispers. The demon’s hand trails down Dean’s spine. “Such a shame, but if you’ve changed your mind I can strap you back to the Rack right now…”_

_Dean slices into Cas’ wing. The angel screams--_

“Dean. _Dean_.” 

Sam.

Sam’s saying his name.

Dean sits up. Sam’s standing a few feet from the bed. The guest room light is on. Sam’s face is creased in concern.

“I’m fine,” Dean says.

“Don’t you lie to me,” Sam whispers. “Not about this. Not again. Not after everything.”

Dean scrubs a hand over his face and reaches for the whiskey by the side of the bed.

“We should figure out our plan to take down Eve in the morning,” he says. He takes a swig of booze and feels it burn on the way down. The warmth is soothing. “Gotta stop Crowley from letting out the Leviathans.”

Sam doesn’t leave with the blunt dismissal. “Yeah. We should.”

“Great. Go away. You’re freaking me out, watching me like that.”

Sam exhales through his nose. “We’re talking about this. Maybe not right now, but we will.”

Dean rolls over to turn his back to Sam. 

Sam closes the door with a pointed click and Alastair laughs.

Dean takes a larger sip. “Go away, you bastard.”

“Oh, Dean,” Alastair murmurs in his ear. “If it was really that simple, then why haven’t you gotten rid of me?”

“I just love you too much, sweetheart,” Dean says. His skin doesn’t even crawl much. 

“Sweet talker,” Alastair purrs.

When Sam comes downstairs that morning, Dean’s waiting for him.

“You’re up early,” Sam comments. 

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep. Want some coffee?”

Sam eyes the way Dean’s hands are shaking around his mug. “Sure. I think you might have had enough, though.”

“No such thing as too much caffeine,” Dean says. “Caffeine is the nectar of the gods.”

“I thought that was whiskey.”

“That too.”

Sam pours himself a cup and sits across from Dean.

“You gonna talk about it?” Sam asks, and Dean shakes his head.

“Great.” Sam sighs. It’s one of the most familiar sounds in Dean’s life. “So where are we going? You said Crowley’s opening Purgatory, which seems like something we should, uh, stop.”

Dean remembers those months of death and running all too well. Remembers Cas walking into a reservoir. Remembers a trenchcoat folded in his trunk. Remembers losing his brother and then his angel to Lucifer.

“Yeah. Definitely. Samuel and his crew are off somewhere kidnapping monsters.”

He pauses as a thought occurs to him. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Soulless us have been running around doing God knows what for the past eleven months.”

“Shit,” Sam says. 

Bobby makes a few calls. Each one makes him scowl a little more. 

“Tell you one thing, you boys aren’t very popular at the moment,” he says. “Even Rufus says you’ve been up to some bad shit.”

“Anything noteworthy?” Dean asks.

“Depends on what you classify as _noteworthy_. How many beheadings does it take to make the cut?”

Sam winces. “Got it.”


End file.
